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PET bottles shake up cocktail-mix market

Unique packaging hits bull’s-eye for Target stores’ liquor departments.

Newly designed shaker-style PET cocktail-mix containers respond well to consumer demand for convenience.
Newly designed shaker-style PET cocktail-mix containers respond well to consumer demand for convenience.

Gourmet Tex-Mex food and beverage producer El Paso Chile Co., El Paso, TX, already was supplying freezer buckets filled with prepackaged Margarita fixings to the liquor departments of the Target store chain. The company also provides a line of drink mixes packaged in glass shaker-style bottles with standard lug closures. But Target was looking for a new cocktail-mix packaging idea that could attract increased sales. The only stipulation was that the container be made of plastic.

Determined to respond to the challenge, staffers from El Paso met with representatives of Berlin Packaging and packaging design specialists from Berlin’s design division, Studio One Eleven. El Paso already had a good working relationship with Berlin Packaging, which supplies glass containers for the company’s salsa products. Cathy Damon, Berlin sales rep, came up with the core package concept for the PET shaker-style container, then worked with Studio One Eleven to refine and execute it.

Team takes quick aim at creativity

Ushering the container concept from original sketch through computer-assisted design in less than two weeks, Studio One Eleven created a three-piece packaging system for El Paso’s new Cocktail Chemistry line of beverage mixes. Initially, the line includes three flavors—Appletini, Cosmo, and Lemon Drop—with other regular and seasonal flavors to be added later. The consumer simply adds vodka and ice to the container, shakes, and pours the mixed beverage into a glass.

Berlin Packaging enlisted the services of several third-party packaging component suppliers; sourced all tooling as well as stock and custom packaging components; and handled the complex logistics required to coordinate packaging component supply.

Videos from Enercon Industries Corp.
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